Holiday Walks Part Two: Moelwyn Mawr

For my second walk of our holiday I picked a fairly short walk which would enable me to indulge in some gratuitous Nuttall bagging while, at the same time, climbing one of the more prominent mountains in northern Snowdonia.

I had been tempted to start from Croesor and include the magnificent looking Cnicht but as I was taking my father-in-law, whose most meaningful walk this year had been the short walk to the top of Bull Hill back in January, I thought including Cnicht would be pushing it.

Instead we started from Tangryisiau and to be honest I'm glad we did as I thoroughly enjoyed the walk up the Gwmorthin valley and up to the Rhosydd Slate Mine. While I'm not necessarily a fan of some of the larger open cast quarries that are still in use I do find the remnants of past mining activity quite fascinating. With this in mind I don't think I've come across many more interesting sites than Rhosydd. Apparently surface excavations began in the 1830's but by the 1850's the majority of the workings were underground and by the 1880's it was one of the largest underground workings in Wales with 170 chambers.

In the shadow of Moelwyn Mawr and with a great view of Cnicht I wonder if the hundreds of people who would have worked the mine in its heyday appreciated the location. While we mainly saw the remnants of the surface buildings we did have a peer down an adit, while the huge open cast hole of West Twll was a most impressive sight.

While I was out to bag peaks my father-in-law just wanted an enjoyable walk in the mountains so while he made a beeline for Moelwyn Mawr I made a couple of detours to visit the tops of Moel-yr-hydd and the so-called Moelwyn Mawr North Top. The former was definately worth while with great views down into the Cwmorthin valley, Blaenau Ffestiniog and Tanygrisiau Reservoir. The latter is the kind of insiginificant bump which gives the Nuttalls a bad name, in fact if it had not been included in their book as a top I would seriously doubt that it even meets the necessary requirements.

After a final short steep climb we finally made it on to the top of Moelwyn Mawr where we enjoyed a fine vista with nearly all the main mountain ranges from Cadair Idris to the south to the Carneddau in the north in view. We spent quite some time on the summit soaking up the views, eating our lunch and taking numerous photos.

Eventually we descended via the short rocky ridge of Craigysgafan the highest point of which is a Nuttall in its own right. This was an excellent section with some good views down to Llyn Stwlan The final summit of the day was Moelwyn Bach which looked quite imposing from Craigysgafan Dave decided to give it a miss and instead stayed on Craigysgafan to take photos of me with his fancy new camera as I toiled up the steep path on to the summit of Moelwyn Bach. Upon reaching the top I was able to take some retrospective pictures back at him.

Meeting back down at Bwlch Stwlan we descended to Llyn Stwlan and then followed the access road all the way back to where we had parked the car. This was a walk full of interest with some great long distance views as well. After all my Pennine walking this year it was also nice to get into some more mountainous terrain. One of my favourite walks of the year without a doubt.